Games and Society

To add to Christiansen's post, I wanna throw my 2 gil/copper/zenni/cents out there as well. As the gaming industry continues to expand, society has taken a very different stance on video games.

Think back fifteen or even twenty years ago. The profile gamer was either a sub-12 year old or a post-25 year old living in his parents basement(possibly playing D&D with his "party"). Video games were part of a sub-culture in the US. There was no seriousness about it. Gaming was about playing games and having simple fun. The role of video games in society was "things that nerds or small children did." Around the turn of the century, the role of games in society began to change. With the increase in popularity of online gaming, the gaming community began to change. Without getting into a history lesson here, lets flash forward to today. What are games for us in 2008(soon to be 2009).

Arguably one of the best places to read up on the daily interactions of video games and our society is gamepolitics.com. This is where I tend to go for my daily fix of /facepalm's. 98% of the time I go there, I sit in bewilderment of our society.

It seems to me(a person with a semi-functional brain), that nobody in this goddamn society wants to take responsibility for their own actions. Nothing is ever YOUR fault, it's always THEIR fault. It's a weak and overused excuse. It's not MY fault that I shoved the firecracker up my ass, it's YOUR fault for not putting a warning to NOT PUT IT UP MY ASS. Or how about the famous, I didn't know the HOT COFFEE was HOT. I'm suing you.


As Christiansen pointed out, the FCC commissioner blames World of Warcraft as the leading cause of college dropouts. yes. Lets totally not count the fact that we're currently in an economic recession, credit markets are needing a bailout, people are defaulting on their mortgages, the US has shed over 100,000 jobs during this month, and the cost of going to college is on average about $35k a year. Did I mention that some college graduates come out with over $100k worth of student loans? Alright, alright, I'll stop with the links. Just tryin to cite my sources.

In the context of the gaming culture, the one group that refuses to take any social responsibility are the parents(I know they'll never read this blog so I can say this[on second thought, i don't give a shit if they do read it]). I must give credit for this next bit to a pretty smart man, George Carlin. Parents gotta be the most full of shit people on the planet. Let me rephrase that, STUPID parents gotta be the most full of shit people on the planet. I know a bunch of good people who raised their kids right(*cough cough* my folks *cough cough*). It's pretty much the same shit every time with these stupid parents. If the kid comes out all fucked up, they had nothing to do with it. "Ohh it's all those damn video games he plays." or "It's because he was talking with those weird fucking people online." If the kid is successful, they're the first ones to raise their hands and be like "Yeah that was all me. I did a good job, look here." Here's the dumb thing, this can happen TO THE SAME KID. He might fucks up on SATs and has to settle for a "lower" university, hey it happens. BAM! Not their fault. Kid is barred from all family functions because he's a disgrace. Kid later wins a nobel prize for his work at this "lower" university, BAM! "It was because I pushed him with his studies and told him to never give up" bullshit. Now lets do the oh so fun game examples.

Here's one. Two kids hang a kitten with a xbox controller after playing GTA. Yes. Because the game "This game allows players to kill cops and rape women,” which leads to violence against small animals. The boys were age six and seven. The report blames the content of the game for the actions of the two small children. Yet, where are the parents in this case? No mention of how two small children were given permission to play a game that is only purchasable by someone 17 or older. Child supervision? Any? Baby sitter? Older sibling? Uncle? Aunt? PARENT? None? Well then. Lets put some small children in a room with a loaded gun and see how that turns out. And when they shoot each other, lets blame the gun.

Speaking of assault with a weapon. Check this kid out. The kid tries to rob his fucking teacher in order to buy GTA4. Because his mother wouldn't buy it for him. And it's the game's fault. Wait wait. I'm not sure if I can blame the parents directly. But their kid is pretty fucked up. And if he did play GTA, he must've been a terribad. First he asks for $20. Then $1. WTF kind of bargaining is that?

Ohhh hohohoho. Yeah, this will seem mean. Brandon Crisp. You might remember him. He's the 15 year old kid that went missing after his parents banned him from playing XBox360. Ohhh the mother is blaming Call of Duty 4. It's an addiction to the game. Blah blah blah. No,no, the extreme lack of parenting and not beating the shit out of your kid for being a complete fucking idiot. In all honesty, I see it as natural selection. If two retards breed, the spawn shouldn't survive. Oh yeah, the kid was found. I think the best would be the raids done on pages in his honor.

Alright, my face is getting red from slapping it so much. I must conclude this article here. I hope those of you that read this kinda get where I'm coming from. All blame cannot be solely placed on one thing. People gotta suck it the fuck up and take responsibility for their shit. Maybe I'll edit this article and turn it into a paper for some class one day.

Games: societies sin, scapegoat or savior?

I dunno what they have been putting in my tea recently, but I've been feelin awful high and mighty (my guess based on the symptoms would be THC and Steroids). So anyways, I was cruisin escapistmagazine.com in the news section after getting a delightfully weekly dose of our surly australian friend yahtzee, when I come across two conflicting news articles.

The first was a story about a virtual reality experience called "snow world", which is being used to treat burn victims. Specifically in this video a Iraq War Veteran who is recovering from an injury sustained from an RPG blast.



I assume the penguins and snowmen are up to something insidious. They usually are. If there is anything I have learned from backpacking through Greenland, is to never trust penguins and that their thug snowmen are usually in tow. Regardless, this seems like a great use of gaming as a powerful means of suggestion, by taking the focusing and redirecting capabilities of gaming and building a treatment specific experience around it. This is just the tip of the iceberg, where they go from here is going to be interesting.

Then... THEN!!! I come across this horse shit of an article.

FCC says online games are leading cause of college drop outs



I mean we have all heard about it. The story about the guy that had a free ride to "insert posh expensive college" and got kicked from school because he was playing too much "insert time consuming brain vacuum MMORPG". I mean FFS I am tired of hearing this shit.

GTA causes school shootings. WoW causes people to flunk out of college. Spore causes people to strap bananas to turtles and try to mate with them. No, I am sorry this is all bullshit.

Video games, like any other form of entertainment media, are inherently devoid of ethical leaning. They are a vessel for the expression of the people creating it AND playing it. They are a reflection of our society. The fucked up shit in video games is the result of fucked up shit in the world. Not the vice versa.

Now in the context of the first article, it is undeniable that video games do have a powerful suggestive force, that derives primarily from it being an experiential form of entertainment rather then a passive one. So if it can convince someone that their burn wound doesn't hurt like fuck, then some douchebag jagoff with a chip on his shoulder playing GTA might think the game was a suggestion rather then a hedonistic release from everyday toils inspired by gangster movies such as scarface. Then again there is also this story about a guy who shot himself in the leg because his unsafetied gun was slipping out of his sweatpants in a club. Maybe you have heard the story?

My point is: people are fucking dumb. Putting blame on video games and trying to regulate their content is treating the symptom of a much larger problem. There are many steps that led to the behaivor of these individuals and although a particular game might be a step along the way, it certainly is not the cause.

The more we treat people like mindless drones capable of being manipulated at the tiniest suggestion, the more they are going to act like it. We have to hold people responsible for their actions. Also, we have to realize that there is a problem here that we either aren't aware of or just flat out aren't addressing.

Wow is what you make it. So when you see this article or someone tells you that you are a sweaty shut in social retard, tell em to fuck off. I am proud to play WoW. I have met (thanks to blizzcon, literally met) interesting people from all around the United States, that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to.

Sorry about getting all preachy. I promise more surly comical game blog content soon.